Transducer devices are used in a variety of applications to transfer energy between electrical systems and mechanical systems. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), for example, is a transducer-based technology that may employ piezoelectric transducers in various configurations to perform sensing functions. QCM technology takes advantage of the fact that the resonant frequency of a transducer typically varies with the effective mass of the transducer. Accordingly, when portions of a sample material bind to the transducer, the mass of the bonded sample material can be detected by monitoring the resonant frequency of the vibrating mass.
A related technology is rupture event scanning (RES), in which transducers may be employed to produce mechanical energy to break bonds within a sample material. In addition to providing energy to break the bonds, the transducers may be used as sensors to analyze acoustic events (e.g., a pressure wave) that can occur when bonds break. Different types of bonds have unique properties that produce distinctive acoustic events. The bonds can be identified and analyzed by using various techniques to study the acoustic events.
Existing rupture event devices and methods typically employ high Q transducer devices which are excited with pure sinusoidal signals at the resonant frequency of the transducer. In existing devices and methods, continuous scanning operations are performed on the transducer to determine whether the system is still operating at resonance, and/or to determine whether a change in resonant frequency has occurred. This often requires use of a low-amplitude test signal to ensure that rupture events are not induced while the resonant frequency is being determined. In certain operational settings, the process of determining the resonant frequency, particularly when performed frequently and repeatedly, can significantly limit the speed at which samples are processed. Processing speed is also limited in many existing systems by the analytic methods used to study transducer output data.